Cormorant Entertainment
Cormorant Entertainment is the working name that Dozerfleet Productions operated under from August of 1997 until May of 2006. It was a more productive era than the Flamingo one in the number of materials made for concepts, even if those concepts were later abandoned. This era lasted from the final days of the Dozerfleet founder in junior high to the parting of ways with Lansing Community College to transfer to Ferris State University. For projects that happened after the transfer related to classwork, see the Ferris State University Project Archive. For projects more directly related to LCC classwork, see the Lansing Community College Project Archive. For non-academic works that happened immediately after the brand changed to Dozerfleet, see Dozerfleet Productions projects in the 2000s. For 2010, the final academic year, and anything before the Abrujanian Megaverse restructure, see Dozerfleet Productions projects of the early 2010s. Inspiration After the DF decided that the name "Flamingo Entertainment" sounded too cliché, the decision was made to choose a new bird as the "company" mascot. The bird that caught the most attention was the brown cormorant, which had an article in Microsoft Encarta '95 CD-ROM's directory. That year in 1997, the Rainbow Creative Writing curriculum being used at Holy Trinity Lutheran School in Wyoming, MI had changed its name for second-year participants. First year still operated under "Rainbow," but the theme for second-year participants was "Pot-O'-Gold." The resulting "Pot-O'-Gold" class required participants to operate under pen names that had something to do with a mineral. The DF's pen name was "Cormorant Bronze." Pre-2002 projects Before 2002, Cormorant still had about as much coherence with regards to project management as Flamingo Entertainment had before it. Comprehensive construction and world-building didn't come till much later. ''Mechanical Conflict'' Main article: Mechanical Conflict Years: 1998-2000 Abandoned in favor of Stationery Voyagers, this project's vision eventually came to fruition through works such as the Gundam series and Warner Bros' Pacific Rim franchise. ''Rainbow Jockeys'' Years: 1998-1999 A short-lived Power Rangers spoof, this one did away with the old Penguin models and took a satirical approach to things like never before. ''Yo-Splaz! ''Main article: Yo-Splaz! Yo-Splaz! was a newsletter written by the Dozerfleet founder from June of 1999 until around August of 2000, intended for a friend/romantic interest of the time named Carly. It is the predecessor to Dolphinformia, and an early attempt to branch out into journalism. Livin' It Like al-Queada Year: 1999 Main article: Livin' It Like al-Queada Originally titled "Like a Loco," this song was written as a proto-War-on-Terror commentary and as a response to the radio over-playing Ricky Martin's "Livin' La Vida Loca." The lyrics were modified after 9/11, and the song became a track on the Every Ape and His Brother album Elefante Elegante Interesante Importante. ''Stationery Voyagers'' Main article: Stationery Voyagers ''Camp Jellybean'' Year: 2000 Main article: Camp Jellybean This horror short story spawned two sequels, and has been considered for a remake / reboot. Boozer Year: 2000 Main article: Boozer This song made its way to the Every Ape and His Brother album Elefante Elegante Interesante Importante, and has remained there since. ''Jack Emu'' Jack Emu was a short story written in 2001, around the same time as Camp Jellybean 3. Unlike the other stories, individuals' real names were not used in this story. Similar names were used. In this tale, "Majorie Pinata" (Ann Marie) had to rescue her class from the titular Jack Emu; a Joe Camel knock-off. No known trace of the intact story exists in the present day. ''Pollo Dehielo'' Pollo Dehielo was a short-lived comic strip in 2001 about a blue chicken-suited superhero that could spray ice chunks at opponents. Hyper-Über-Proto Gerosha Main article: Hyper-Über-Proto Gerosha ''The Matchmaintainer'' Main article: The Matchmaintainer The show premise aimed at capturing some of the same market as a lot of other romance and dating shows of the early oughties; but with the goal of having a more mature attitude about it. Also, the emphasis would be on having a "Jiminy Cricket"-type figure, a "Matchmaintainer," follow a struggling couple around for two weeks and intervene with their relationship in an effort to fix problems with it that both parties overlook. Different relationship counselors would follow different couples around, at the couple's consent, and would track the progress in relationship health until the "meddling period" came to an end. The couples would then be given advice on what to do with their relationships based on overall assessments and evaluations, before being sent on their way to decide for themselves what to do. The Dozerfleet founder got the idea after helping two of his classmates successfully mend a lot of their relationship issues. The couple wound up staying together for several months after that, before the guy got fed up with the girl's medical health issues. The girl, however, took the advice given to heart; and it helped her become successfully and happily married to someone else years down the road. ''The Adventurous Adventures of Redundant Man'' Main article: The Adventurous Adventures of Redundant Man Submitted for a play contest, this script was later considered "grade-A TV sketch material" by the judges. However, not much was done with it since. ''Replox: Abstract Foundations'' Main article: Replox: Abstract Foundations The first (self)-published novel. While it had to be released for free due to trademark issues with Seven Towns LTD, this story set an early precedent for development of Dozerfleet heroes moving forward. First initiated as a project in 2001, this story was completed in the spring of 2002. ''Dolphinformia'' Main article: Dolphinformia Emily Kincare was given the same treatment as Carly before her, until she and the Dozerfleet founder parted ways in the late summer of 2002: a bi-weekly newsletter used as a way to send love letters back and forth while dressing it up as something else. This was in the days before instant messaging and online dating truly took off. The Rock Cycle * "The Rock Cycle" was written for a class assignment, but was praised by a national society. Post-2002 projects Post-2002 is when works started belonging to shared universes, and a multiverse began to take form. The beginnings of what would become known as Dozerfleet Labs also started taking shape around this time. ''LWW Ritzed'' Main article: LWW Ritzed This Narnia parody would have been a slapstick animation, and part of the budding Dromedeverse. However, it was scrapped after Epic Movie told similar jokes - and ruined them. Über-Proto Gerosha Main article: Über-Proto Gerosha Years: 2002-2004 Mackleyverse Proto Gerosha Main article: Proto Gerosha Years: 2004-2005 Gerosha Prime Main article: Gerosha Prime Years: 2005-2006 Eccentriaverse Main article: Eccentriaverse Dromedeverse Main article: Dromedeverse Gorillaverse Every Ape and His Brother Main article: Every Ape and His Brother Defunct comic universes ''Star Flops: Curse of the Medium Side'' Star Flops: Curse of the Medium Side was crafted in November of 2005, as a way to have some fun with the concept of doing a Star Wars-esque story inside of The Sims 2. Alas, the DSHW of it wasn't that well-formed, and the story never gained much popularity. ''When Bikes Argue'' When Bikes Argue was done as an experiment to apply the DSHW format to a photocomic that wasn't Gored By Them Things, to push that it was for more than just making machinomics. It was first created in July of 2005 A sequel followed in December, and When Bikes Argue 2 was published in total in January of 2006. Both were adapted to video in 2008, under the DozerfleetTV banner. Cormorant Labs Dozerfleet Labs is the youngest of the Dozerfleet Divisions, overlapping with Dozerfleet Web. Both got their start around the same time: in 2003, as Cormorant Labs. This division was unofficial until after the Dozerfleet Labs name was attached to it. The Albums Master was supposed to make organizing folders on Windows (and later, Mac) easier and more fun with custom icons for folders sorted by file type, with color-coded folders. While custom division and project folder icons are in use today, the old Albums Master concept was abandoned with the transition from Windows XP to Windows 7 and beyond. ''The Sims 2'' custom content .]] Generation: Hot Coffee was a joke project that was a kickstarter to much of the early Dozerfleet Machinomic Downloadables, or "DzMD" label for making custom content for games. This T-shirt featured a harmless coffee mug on it, and took a jab at the GTA: San Andreas "Hot Coffee" scandal that made headlines around 2005 and continued to cause stirs of controversy well into 2006. In addition to this, the budding DzMD (initially dubbed "All Things Sims," but changed to "Utterly Sims" to avoid a head-bump with another site by that name, before being given its current moniker to include games outside the Sims franchise) made a wide variety of film and TV tie-in materials for The Sims 2. The list included, but was not limited to: * The StretchSkeleton Cheat Accessories Kit * Cyrillic Checkpoint Sign from Ghost Recon * Derek, Margo, and Moki from Hana-Barbera's The Greatest Adventures: Stories from the Bible * Flight 121 seats from Snakes on a Plane * The Mask * Theodore and Amos from The Apple Dumpling Gang * A dress worn by Rose Byrne as she played Briseis in Troy The WELS MSU/LCC Campus Ministry Center in East Lansing was converted into a Sims lot in 2006. Various characters from early versions of The Gerosha Chronicles also got made in 2005 and 2006 into downloadable Sims, including Ciem (Prime and Despair versions), Miriam Flippo, Dolly Malestrom, Milp, Captain Aardwulf, and more. Classic Gerosha versions of these and more followed in 2007, with production not ceasing on Sims 2 versions of Gerosha characters until 2011. A pack for the Grillitan Diner and its operators was also made around 2006, but was rejected for upload to Mod The Sims. As time went by, a Pseudo-chroma key screen was made for use in Sims 2, a concept later canonized into the Sims franchise itself with a green screen prop included in The Sims 4: Get Famous in 2018. T-shirts for Snakes on a Plane, based on various named snakes in the production and behind-the-scenes, were also released. In 2010, the cast of Inception was turned into Sims for Sims 2. A Sims 3 version soon followed, and a Sims 4 version followed in 2014. In 2008, one of the last hurrahs for Sims 2 custom content building was a pack for Becka Rangers: Nemo Thunder. Website development Beginning with CITW 150 class in the spring of 2005, the brand finally got a (short-lived) website. There was some desire to add to the Cormorant website, and to add content visitors would want to view. This led to the DVD-Storybook Hybrid Webcomic format being developed, to be able to mimic the Sims 2 Storyteller Exchange without having to rely on it as much. Attempts to standardize the format were...hit and miss. Per a programming class at LCC, Jewelry Jiddy's Wedding Ring Store Discount Calculator became a joke app. It was followed by [[The Sims 2 Gallon Converter|The Sims 2 Gallon Converter]], and other early programs. Some of these, made with Visual Basic, were later converted to web apps. Kurse of the Kryptonite was developed for at-the-time-8th-grader Alex Eckart, as a tutorial website on how to make HTML sites. It was completed shortly before the Cormorant brand changed its name to Dozerfleet. ✎ ♰''ri-sola poetry'' Tri-Sola Poetry was embarked upon by the Dozerfleet founder as early as 2003, to help gain popularity for Michael J. Hayes and his religious poetry writing. It began as "Reflections," then became "Fortress Rock," before changing its brand name again to Tri-Sola. A few of Mike's poems remain available for mass circulation. See also * Way Early Comics * Flamingo Entertainment * Dozerfleet Productions projects in the 2000s * Dozerfleet Productions projects of the early 2010s Category: Dozerfleet eras under a different alias